How to Relax and Be Happy During Hard Times

How to Relax and Be Happy During Hard Times

By Wil Langford 

Knowing how to relax and be happy, no matter what is happening around you, is a real gift. There have been real life accounts of people who were rich and healthy, who seemed to lead an ideal life, and yet, they were unhappy or sad. On the other hand, there have also been accounts of people whose lives were hard, even painful, and yet, they were happy. How can this be?

The reason for these paradoxes is that happiness and sadness are not determined by circumstances, but by our state of mind. 

That may be one of the greatest gifts of life and each of us may partake of it merely by learning how to focus on things that bring peace, relaxation, happiness. Whatever we focus on will determine our mental, emotional, and even physical state. Of course, there are some limitations, but I have rarely found a person who couldn't be happier or more relaxed.

I learned the value of focusing my mind many years ago when I had to overcome a very big challenge. I had a young family to support and managed to land a job in a shipyard repairing submarines. It was a good job with health benefits and security that I needed for my wife and son. However, I was assigned to the torpedo room and was told that I would be working inside tanks and even inside the long torpedo tubes. I had suffered from pretty severe claustrophobia all my life and had omitted to mention that when I got hired because I was afraid I wouldn't get the job if I brought it up.

For those of you who may never have been on a submarine, particularly a small, fast attack submarine, let me describe it for you. Every square inch of space in a submarine is precious and almost every part has equipment and pipes in the way. Humans are the last piece of equipment to be added and therefore, we have to work around all those pipes, wires, machines, pumps and gear. Worse yet, a torpedo tube is a long metal pipe, like a big gun barrel, with a door on each end. At one end is the torpedo room and at the other end, the ocean. It is cold, dark, and so small you have to crawl in and out. There isn't enough room to turn around in a torpedo tube so if you crawl in headfirst, you are looking at the dark end.

The first day I went into the torpedo room, my boss asked if I was afraid of tight places. I tried to hide my fear and said, "No." He then told me to crawl inside the torpedo tube with an inside micrometer (a measuring device) to measure at certain intervals the entire length of the tube. I was afraid that I would panic once in the tube, but managed to crawl inside with my drop light and micrometer, pen and paper. Then, a thought occurred to me. Maybe if I kept focused on measuring and writing, I wouldn't notice the tight spot or think about a panic attack.

I crawled to the far end of the tube, about 30 feet away, all the while thinking about the job and how to do it. Before I knew it, I was at the far end of the tube. I put the light down and started measuring and writing the measurements on the paper. When I say I focused, I mean I really focused, consequently, I did a great job. Unfortunately for me, I did such a good job that I wound up working in those torpedo tubes day after day, measuring and grinding them back into shape.

I crawled all over those submarines during the next two years, in tighter spots than the torpedo tubes, too. My method was always the same, just focus on what you want to do and do it. The fact that I was also studying meditation and learning how to focus was a great help to me, as well. It was a valuable life lesson about how your surroundings have less to do with your feelings than your attitude and desire. My desire was to provide for my family and myself, even if it meant doing something difficult and fear producing, my attitude was that I could do it if I focused on the job.

It may be the same for you. Focus on what you want in life. I am not talking about material things, but rather, the feelings you want. What thought makes you feel happy? You will only be as happy or sad as you feel and thoughts lead to feelings. While chemical changes in the body and brain do affect our feelings, our thoughts affect the chemicals in our bodies. Every thought that you have is an electro-chemical event in your body and produces polypeptides and hormones that affect how you feel, even your physical health. While clinical depression is a medical condition that does require medical care, for many of us, our thoughts and learning to use them for our own happiness, is all it takes to feel good even when times are bad.

Winning Back Trust

Trust, to me, is a simple matter. It boils down to a pure essence, one that smells nothing like a rat. Trust is being where you’re supposed to be, when you're supposed to be, doing what you said you would do. In that respect, trust is just a series of repeat visits that coincide with the expectations of the truster, such that the truster doesn't have to be breathing down the other guy's neck eight days a week. 




Trust is difficult to gain, but much more easily lost and almost impossible to win back. It can be lost through no fault of your own, such as by miscommunication or by bad timing. Another way to lose it is by getting sloppy and letting the quality of your work slide. Then there's losing trust by intentional deceit, like when Whitey Bulger informed the Feds that Howie Winter was fixing horse races. Imagine Mr. Winter trying to forgive and forget after 10 years in the clink.

A breach of trust is so difficult to forgive because trust is so vital to daily operations, and lifelong partnerships rely on it. But winning back trust is possible with the following methods.

Act early

Once you realize that you have betrayed someone's trust, tell the person yourself before someone else does. Put your hat in your hand, step onto the carpet and pipe up. Put some sugar on it and act humble. If the person you betrayed gets angry, take the tirade with style and make it known that you are taking off the cloak and dagger out of loyalty. In other words, grovel with dignity.  

Be persistent

At first, you will probably be rebuffed by the person you let down. Even if someone says, "You're dead to me now," don't give up right away. If you grew up Catholic like everyone in my neighborhood did, you'll be feeling plenty guilty about your sins. Put that guilt to work by acting penitent. Don't let the last word be spoken in the heat of the moment. Go away for a while, and then come back once the initial anger has worn down -- the edge will be smoother a few days later. Look at all these cafone celebrities, for example. They make asses of themselves, then a week later, I see them smiling on the morning news while I'm trying to enjoy my coffee.  

If you want to work in this town again, own up to your mistake.


Don't make excuses

This is especially important when the problem arose from something beyond your control. Most people have to gamble at times and operate in what my banker calls "the float." The float is when your account doesn't quite have the money you need just yet, but a check is in the mail, and you go ahead and make another deal as if you were solvent. You lie because business sometimes requires it.  

The same thing happens with deliveries and timing. Let's say the bagman arrives much too late with the dough. In the interim, you have to cover the vacuum of missing money using your mouth. Promise confidently to fulfill your original promise. Deals fall through from time to time -- it's a part of life -- but when you have to tell someone that you lied, at least do it with clarity and dignity.

Learn from your mistakes

One reason Al Capone lasted as long as he did is that he surrounded himself with ironclad people who understood the meaning of omerta. If you are cast out to the east of your Eden, don't plunge into self-reflection; rather, learn from your mistake. Let your pride down for a moment so that the lesson gets tattooed in your brain.

Parents tell their kids to learn from others’ mistakes, not from their own. But anyone who has lived beyond the age of 40 can assure you of one thing: Mistakes will be made no matter what your intentions, just like history will repeat itself. Therefore, knowing that life will never be perfect, you should swallow the lesson of what it feels like to lose someone's trust and don't do it again.

Change your behavior

The person you betrayed has no compelling reason to believe your plea unless you show that you have changed. If the problem started because you weren’t paying attention to detail, then become a stickler. Perhaps you were spending more time chasing the girls around the maypole than working, so get back on the bricks every day until your feet hurt.

After a certain age, it becomes difficult to change, but a dire situation requires a new way of thinking. Plenty of guys have checked into Alcoholics Anonymous because they have lost trust. If booze or drugs are the stumbling blocks impeding your progress, figure out how to get out of that cycle.

Fix the process

Policies, traditions and routines are often flawed and prone to failure. If the system you are working in doesn't have the harmony of the planets, take measures to rectify the irregular parts of your business. Make suggestions to your boss about how to avoid having the same thing happen again. Sometimes it's only one trucker who is late; sometimes it's the whole trucking company. Cut the contract, trim the fat or do whatever you must to restore confidence in your end of the business. Rather than passing the buck and finding a cause for your misfortune, rethink the process so that it doesn't happen again.

Start climbing again

Keep your nose to the grindstone and your feet moving. Falling down a few ranks doesn't have to break your mind. A demotion is not the end of the world unless you want to roll over, but that's what goomahs are for. Wake up in the morning and start setting the world on fire -- but not like Frank Notarantonio did.

GET BACK UP THERE

Regardless of how much remorse you feel or how willing you are to change, once people know about your temporary downfall, you will endure a period of sneers and jeers. So be it. In life, you might wash 10,000 windows, but people will only remember the one that you fell through. Self-doubt may eat at you, but if you work hard to prove yourself, the wisecracks will eventually stop. The betrayal will be forgotten by those knuckleheads, and the person you betrayed will begin to notice that you aren't such a deadbeat after all.

Feel in a Rut? Jump Out!

Feel in a Rut? Jump Out!

IN A RUT GET OUT

You in a bad mood? You upset because you missed the latest episode of Prison Break and want to know if Schofield was able to hot wire a turbine engine with the metal implants in his fillings?. Well, here are some tips to help you to get your butt in gear!


1. GO ON A QUICK JOG AROUND THE BLOCK

Remember your grandma always used to say, “Johnny, get out of the house!” Well, this time and probably only this time. She was right. Sometimes all we need is a little motion and like that our emotion will change. What I like to do is go on a quick jog around the block. I grab my iPod and blast my favorite song as I run as fast I can. Some may say that you should warm-up first, and they're probably right, but when you feel bad you're not thinking about warming up =)

2. GO ON A WALK AND RELAX

Not the running type. Old college football injuries? Crazy Ex-girlfriend injuries? Whatever your story. You can still go on a walk and get some benefits. Another reason is that when you feel bad you start to anchor locations to certain states of mind. (We have Pavlov and his dogs to thank for that!)

3. SMILE

And smile for real, not the cheap smile you give to your girlfriend's dad. Studies at UC Berkley showed that when they took depressed patients and just had them smile for five minutes a day, that after thirty days they reported feeling better. Give it a shot and even if it doesn't work, at least you'll have a cool cheesy smile, like that used car salesman that you bought that Winnebago from. That's cool!

4. BREATHE

Pregnant chics practice breathing, and it helps them to deliver a baby! Imagine if you did it yourself! Follow this ratio! Breath in for a count for four, hold for a count of four, and exhale for a count of four. Why a count of four? Because it's easy to keep track of! Enjoy and before long you'll be instructing Lamaze classes!

The Simple Life

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.“
~ Confucius

Don’t you just love the excitement you feel after coming home with a new TV? Driving home in a new car? Opening the box on a new pair of shoes?
I sure do. But, from watching the behavior of myself and my friends I’ve found that the new quickly becomes just another item. The excitement of novelty passes quickly.
As we become wealthier, people seem to be adding more and more things to our homes. We then use our homes, and our treasures, to justify that we have won the game of life.

Growing up in a family of pack-rats, I spent many years in my teens and early twenties accumulating stuff. During this time, much of my self-worth was unconsciously associated with the amount of stuff I owned; the brand names, and the latest trends. I spent a lot of money on clothes and stuff that made me feel ‘superior’. They gave me a sense of identity. If I just removed these things without awareness, my ego would have suffered. I had grown so attached to that definition of myself, that my loss would have been much deeper than just the cute sweater.

Not only did I not find myself in all this, I’ve also accumulated a lot of clutter in my living space and my inner space. Ironically, the piles of stuff actually held me back from understanding and inner peace with myself.
We are so eager to fill our homes, yet so disinterested in cleaning it out. As a result, we now require larger spaces, more storage space, and more clutter for the mind. Did you know that there are more self-storage facilities in North America than there are McDonald’s restaurants? We find it difficult to reduce the amount of stuff we own is due to our attachment to these things.Is Less Really More?

The joy and art of having less while enjoying more of  life can be summed up, as follows.
The Zen of Space – There is beauty in space, but we fail to recognize it because we can’t see through the stuff we own. When we open up physical space in our environment, a tremendous feeling of peace can dwell within us. This is the principle behind Japanese style homes. Beauty in small spaces is the appreciation of minimalism, where less truly is more. We need to understand that space is to be enjoyed, not filled.
Conserved Energy – Fewer belongings means we have fewer possessions to worry about.

I once knew a wealthy young man, who had anything he dreamt of. He had so many expensive things, and he was so afraid of losing them. Much of his energy was devoted to protecting his possessions and trophies.
Free Your Space – When we are reminded of something we own but never use, we can impose self-inflicted guilt for leaving it unused.
For example, my mother owns a several exercise machines which are rarely used. Each time she sees them, she forces herself to feel guilty. Her guilt eats away at her inner, mental space. Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. By cleaning out and simplifying our outer space, our inner space will open up like a flower.

Appreciation - The less we have, the more attention we can give those things we own and truly need on a regular basis. Appreciation is the seed for abundance; abundance of the mind and the soul. It’s pretty amazing how little we actually need. When we clear our homes and our lives down to the essentials, we are able to better enjoy that which we do have.
Nothing external to us can give us permanent and true happiness. We actually have all we need to be truly happy within us.

The art of having less but enjoying our lives more, involves a few simple changes in perspective. First, we must understand where our true values lie and focus on them. Then, we must take time to enjoy the simple things, and slow down and see what’s right in front of us.